


Lock Eyes

by fujoshibox



Series: Sentience [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Suspense, feudal setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 21:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11240025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fujoshibox/pseuds/fujoshibox
Summary: His people have legends about what happens on the mountains. The world is different up there. And if the world is going to change, that will probably be where it starts.





	Lock Eyes

Markai was lost, hungry, and cold. Also, he was pretty sure he was being hunted.

At this altitude, with the world spread before him in hazy panoramic, he could see all the way down to the fields where he normally spent his days tending his flock. It had taken him hours to climb this high, and he had nothing to show for it. He was still missing half his herd. 

Hands trembling with cold, he raised the ram horn to his lips and blew. It echoed back at him, resounding until he couldn’t tell if he was hearing refrain or wind. 

“No amount of mutton is worth this,” he mumbled to himself, thrusting his hands into his pockets to try and regain feeling.

He stood there for a few minutes, motionless but for his shivering. His cropped brown hair bristled in the air, like the tail of an angry cat. He was hoping to hear something besides the wind. His herding dog had caught a scent earlier in the day and charged off, and he hadn’t seen her since. Every time he crested a ridge, he felt a surge of disappointment when she wasn’t there, wagging her tail and commanding a cluster of sheep. Even the distant sound of her barking would be a relief — something to let him know that she was alive and well.

Instead, the only things he’d heard all morning were the wind and the clatter of loose rocks. Not even birds would come up this high. The mountain was a barren, desolate place. His people had legends about Singing Rocks and Wolf Circles. Fanciful stuff about people never being able to find their way down, devoured by the mountain, transformed into a malicious monster. The ridiculous sort of fables that were never scary in the daylight.

But it would be dark soon.

And ever since midday, he hadn’t been able to escape the lingering feeling that he was being watched.

At this point, he had to make the decision about whether he would retreat back to his village or brave the night on the mountain. If he did go back, he would do so without dog or flock. The loss of sheep would tarnish his reputation with the head shepherd, and he’d spend the next several months trying to redeem himself. He could recover from that. His dog, however, was irreplaceable.

Flaxseed was his best friend. The reason he’d chosen to become a shepherd — as opposed to joining the village farm or competing for an apprenticeship with the blacksmith — was so he could work alongside his dog. They’d been together since he was a boy of eight. He’d gotten her as a pup from a litter his neighbor was planning on drowning; raising them seemed like a waste or resources. Markai’s parents gave in to his whining and crying on the condition that he take on more chores to make up for the burden of a dog.

She wasn’t the best herding dog, always more interested in chasing rabbits than tending sheep, but she was the best companion he could hope for. The sun had just begun to set, and already his breath formed a pale moon over his head and his fingers were a canvas of blue from cold. If he abandoned Flax to the mountain, she would probably die from exposure. Then again, so would he if he tried to search for her all night. 

He drew the ram’s horn to his lips and blew again, until the thin mountain air robbed the breath from his lips. Still silence. He had no hope of finding her on the broad face of the mountain. However, if he broadcasted his location, maybe she could find him. 

Dizzy from exertion, Markai stumbled forward, deciding to retreat to the treeline and take shelter there. A fire could act as both beacon and shield, giving Flax something to aim for and him something to stave off cold. He needed wood to make a campfire. He had a pocket knife, but no ax. Fortunately, the scrubby trees were thin and dry, their branches easily snapped off. Markai dragged a sizeable load to the middle of a rocky outcrop. Jagged boulders formed almost a full circle. Here, he would be sheltered from the wind.

The hair on the back of his neck tickled, being embraced by a wall of stone. It reminded him even more of the tales told around a campfire.

_ And the traveller slept in the circle of stone, thinking himself safe and sound. But when he woke, the hapless bloke, found himself one with the ground. _

“Stupid,” he grumbled to himself, tenderly arranging sticks into flammable formation. “That’s more silly than scary.”

All the old spook stories were like that. He remembered hearing them for the first time at a summer festival; he had spent a sleepless night crying into his pillow. The story had been of a man who saw a beautiful maiden through the fog, and overcome with desire, he chased after her. When he finally caught up, it wasn’t a maiden, but an outcrop of rock. Still compelled beyond his control, the man embraced the stone. The stone embraced him back, breaking him in two. Until this morning, Markai had never understood how a person could mistake stone for something else, but the perpetual mist gave everything a bit of life.

Markai focused his mind on lighting the fire. Even here in the circle of rock, there was enough of a breeze to snatch his sparks away, and he had to shield them carefully. Even once the sparks took, the fire sputtered and gasped in the thin air, the flames whipping like reeds in the wind. Markai fed it carefully. It was going to be a long night, and he had to ration his wood.

Once that was done, he fished in his pockets for the last bits of food he had brought with him: half an apple and a chunk of cheese. He hadn’t anticipated spending this long up here. Since the apple was already browned and withered, he polished it off, then slipped the cheese back in his pocket. Breakfast.

There was nothing left to do but watch the fire. It was either that or watch the shadows dancing around the edges of light. The feeling of being watched had finally, mercifully faded. However, other paranoias were taking their place. Things lived up here on the mountain. Goats, pikas, marmots. Why hadn’t he seen any all day? Markai’s people occasionally gleaned resources from the mountain, although most stuck closer to the base. However, there was enough knowledge passed along for Markai to know that there should be  _ something  _ up here. 

Maybe that knowledge was false. Maybe it was the goats and pikas that were made up and the wolf-men who were real.

“I’m going to sleep,” Markai announced. The rock made no reply.

With a little bit of rearranging, he managed to turn his pack into a serviceable pillow. It was serviceable in that it would keep his head off the ground, not in that it would provide any comfort. He’d taken the ram’s horn out of the pack so that he didn’t have to feel it poking against him. Instead, he clutched it between his hands, tracing the shape with his fingers and thinking of Flaxseed. 

Something must have happened to her. Even if she had fallen down a hole or twisted her leg, she still should have responded to the ram’s horn with a howl of her own. 

She was probably dead. Markai wasn’t a child; we was fourteen and old enough to work a job. He wasn’t going to lie to himself and pretend everything was all right. Flaxseed was probably dead, and the chances of her bounding into the circle of firelight unharmed were practically none. However, he owed it to her to wait. The next morning, he would search the mountain side and call on his ram horn, and if he could not find her, he would descend the mountain alone.

His eyes stung. The night chill gnawed viciously at the tears threatening to spill over, as if mocking him for his weakness. The sun was fully down now, and he spent the next few hours drifting uneasily between sleep and waking. Not only was it colder than he was used to, but he was all alone. Usually Flaxseed curled at his feet, and he was surrounded by the huffs and shuffling of sheep. Without those reassuring sounds, the whistling of the wind sounded like howling.

“There is no such thing as wolf-men,” he muttered to himself. “The tale is for babies. You are not a baby.”

His words weren’t convincing himself, and they definitely weren’t convincing the wind. It sang on, teasing the toothy edges of the rock that encircled him. It was just like in the story of Wolf Circles.

_ You have to be careful of the mountain at night. The moon is closer there, stronger and more malevolent.  _

Markai found himself searching the night sky. He could see the moon rising, just visible over the edge of the rock. He couldn’t tell from this angle if it was completely full, but it was definitely plump.

_ Don’t ever forget how much the mountain hates you. It hates all men. It will do everything in its power to tear you apart.  _

Forfeiting any chance of sleep, Markai rose and fed the fire. Something to keep himself busy.

_ There are spots on the mountain. Circles of stone. They do not look man made, and you will find no man who knows how they got there, but they are more perfect than any natural outcropping. _

For the first time, it struck Markai as odd how even and regular the circumference of his enclosure was. 

_ Those that are foolish enough to sleep there under the light of a full moon are irreversibly changed, twisted into monsters.  _

“I don’t believe in fairy tales!” Markai screamed. 

Immediately after, he felt his ears grow warm with shame. It was a mercy that he was alone, and no one would know how foolish he was acting. He listened to the sound of his own panicked breathing, taking some comfort in the regularity.

Sleep was out of the question. Now, Markai was left with two options: he could huddle next to the fire until morning, stubbornly battling superstition, or he could take a brand and venture out into the dark. It was obviously the stupid choice; he’d have to abandon his fire to stumble around in the dark. 

“I’m not afraid of you,” he whispered up at the moon.

For a second, he thought he heard the moon whisper back. A wordless chattering followed by a... _ baa _ -ing.

Markai was still for a second, his brain shaking off the frost before catching up. Then it clicked.

His sheep.

He was alert now, snatching a flaming stick from the fire and clambering to his feet. The mountain air was a knife on his skin, cutting him enough to make him gasp. However, armed with a legitimate excuse, he was more than happy to flee from his camp.  

Outside the circle of stone, the mountain was twisted with nighttime shadow. The sparse pine trees looked like an explosion of needles as they twitched in the wind. Markai held his breath, waiting for another sound of sheep. However, it wasn’t a  _ baa _ that betrayed them. Through the trees, Markai spotted a flash of white passing over a ridge on the mountain. 

“Get your fluffy ass back here,” he growled, sprinting after.

Breaking above the treeline, Markai momentarily lost his bearings. In daylight, the mountain had been expansive, stretching off to either side like an imperial wall of stone. In the moonlight, it was endless. He couldn’t tell where the mountain ended and the sky began. When he turned around to look down over the mountain, he couldn’t make out anything beyond indistinct blobs. It was as if the village he came from had evaporated and he was the only person left in the world.

“Sheep. Find the sheep,” Markai reminded himself. 

He made his way to the top of the ridge he had seen the white flash across. He had to move slower than he wanted since the area of light from his torch was small. Looking down, he saw a cluster of white figures. He felt his stomach leap in excitement. However, that was drowned out a moment later when the tingling sensation of being watched washed over him. 

There was a dark figure circling the sheep, so well camouflaged that he wouldn’t have noticed it had it not been for the two dots of light leering back at him. Eyes.

“Flaxseed?” he called. He chided himself for letting his hope get the better of him. It was more likely to be the devil than Flaxseed that found him in the night. There were all sorts of animals that would enjoy a flock of untended sheep for dinner.

His mind raced, thinking of all the things that could be stalking him in the darkness. Bears, goblins, wolves, mountain boar, rock lion, lost spirits. He’d never seen any of these animals, only heard tell of them around the fire. Who was to say which were real and which were the fevered imaginings of wayward travellers? Anything could be real in the moonlight. He was too out of his depth to deserve skepticism. 

Markai whistled softly. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be heard by the shadowy figure, but he had to know if it was Flax.

No response. The shadow continued its circuit of the sheep, driving them into a bundle. Markai was close enough now to tell that the sounds the sheep were making were ones of distress, and they were grouping together defensively. Whatever it was, it knew how to herd.

He’d have to confront it head-on. Stealth wasn’t an option as long as he carried his torch, but tossing it aside wasn’t an option either. He’d be blind without it. Besides, it was the closest he had to a useable weapon. 

Paying as little attention to the terrain as he dared, Markai descended the ridge. The entire time, he kept his eyes trained on the unknown beast, watching it slip and weave around the sheep. It either didn’t notice him or didn’t care that he was approaching. He was carrying a flaming brand, so his gut said the latter.

There was a wisp of movement to his left, and he jerked around.

He was face to face with a monster.

It was within arm’s reach, but it was still black as a burnt-out fire. Instead of illuminating features, all the fire did was make its eyes radiate like coals. Markai thought it was on all fours, although he couldn’t make out legs. He was pretty sure there was a tail, though, quivering behind the beast. 

A rumble, like rocks grinding against each other, emanated from the fiend. Markai recognized it as a growl. It was the type of sound Flax would make when she was annoyed, only deeper and more intense.

“Wolf,” Markai muttered to himself. He’d never seen one in the flesh, but he’d heard the stories. Insatiable hunger that could tear flocks apart. Unsuspecting merchants ambushed on the road. Babies spirited out of cradles. They looked like dogs but acted like devils, with a terrifying knack for intelligence and schemes. And they almost always hunted in packs. He should have known better than to assume there was a solitary wolf.

The wolf looked him over toe to head, ending by locking eyes. Markai shuddered. He wanted to run away, but he couldn’t remember how to move his legs. And he couldn’t pull his gaze away. The wolf just stared, ember-like eyes unreadable. 

The wolf growled again, the spittle framing its mouth caught the light. Markai took an involuntary step back. The wolf took a step forward. They continued their strange dance until Markai backed into something soft and squishy and bleating. A sheep.

“Oh good. They’re herding me now.”

A chill ran down his spine as he realized that was exactly what they were doing. Herding him.

The sheep bunched around him, bleating miserably. They recognized him and associated him with protection. He had none to offer.

Together, the two wolves pushed and pressed them between the rocks. Markai was so turned around he didn’t even know what direction they were heading in. He was grateful for the panicked company of the sheep, if for no other reason than they were obviously more delicious than him. All five of his missing sheep were here. That meant he had five sheep between him and the chopping block...assuming the wolves didn’t devour them all at once. He hadn’t heard many tales of wolves’ restraint. 

They emerged out of the cleft they had been walking along, and ahead was another circle of stone. Markai froze. One of the wolves snapped at his ankles, and he felt its hot breath. He resumed walking forward. Every step increased his dread. 

He could see the stark outline of two more wolves at the mouth of the circle. They were sitting motionless, more focused and still than any dog he’d ever worked with. They snarled as the band approached, and the other wolves snarled back. It did not sound like a friendly exchange, but Markai wasn’t sure wolves were capable of a friendly exchange.

They herded Markai and the mutton into the circle. His brain was already so full of incomprehensible things, Markai hadn’t had time to even think about what would be waiting inside. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have been prepared.

There was a cow, a goat, and a mother pig and her piglets, all huddled at one end, eyes glassy with fear. A few bones littered the ground, but they looked old and picked clean. Amidst the other livestock, dappled grey coat making her almost invisible, was Flax.

“Flax!” Markai shouted. It was a knee-jerk reaction of shock.

Wagging her tail furiously, she limped up to him and made her best attempt to greet him. Cooing gently, he bent beside her to inspect her paw. He couldn’t make out much in the sputtering light of his torch, but she yelped and snatched it back when he touched it. Probably broken, but at the very least twisted. She wouldn’t be able to make it down the mountainside on her own.

“I guess we don’t have to worry about that, do we girl?” he asked. 

Now that he had stopped moving, his shock was catching up to him. Tears pricked his eyes. Sensing his distress, Flax redoubled her efforts to lick him. Throwing his torch down, Markai gave her a hug. He allowed a few tears to fall on her coat, hidden where none could see his shame. They were caged here. If it wasn’t so terrifying, the strangeness of it would have made him laugh.

At the mouth of the pen, the wolves were growling and snarling at each other. Probably arguing over who got to eat whom first. He shuddered, and he could feel Flax trembling, too.

“I guess in the end we’re both just animals, huh?” he asked, pulling Flax close. She winced in pain but didn’t fight it. He felt the sheep pressing around him. At least he would die surrounded by his flock, the closest thing he had to friends. 

Gently, he called each of the sheep by name, stroking their sides. He knew these sheep. He had spent hours in the fields with them, sick and sleepy with summer heat. 

“You are the dumbest animals I have ever met,” he scolded under his breath, “but I’ll be damned if I was just gonna let you go without searching the mountain for you.”

His torch had gone out. He had only the moonlight to see by.

There was that feeling of being watched again.

The wolves were gathered at the mouth of the circle, calm and collected. They were one unbroken line of shadow, a melded monstrosity. In his arms, Flax whined.

“You can feel them watching, too, huh?” he asked.

Flax squirmed, and for fear of making her injury worse, Markai released her. She limped towards the wolves, ignoring his hissed commands to heel.

The wolves watched her approach, still unmoving. She huddled close to the ground, tail wagging tentatively. One of the wolves stepped forward and sniffed her. 

Markai was familiar with dogs, with their body language. He’d spent so long with Flax, he felt he spoke it better than his own native tongue. The wolves were unreadable. They stared, they sniffed, but everything they did was so controlled and distant. 

The inspecting wolf gave Flax’s injured paw a nosing. She flinched but did not yelp. After a moment of inspecting, it seemed satisfied, stepping back and glancing towards the other wolves. There was no expressive motioning of ears, no eager pawing of the ground, no wagging of the rump. All their movements were efficient and cold. The head wolf huffed, and the other wolves parted. They were leaving an opening for Flax to leave. For a moment, Markai thought about dashing for the exit, but he knew it was a fruitless cause. He wouldn’t be able to move faster than the wolves.

Flax looked back at him expectantly.

“Go, girl,” he told her, making a shooing motion with his hands. “One of us might as well leave this place alive.”

However, she limped back to him. Hanging his head, he sighed. She wasn’t smart enough to make the right choice. She licked his face, then hopped a few steps back. It was her way of asking him to follow.

“Flax, the second I get up, those wolves are going to become hostile,” he said.

She stood there, just out of arm’s reach, her tail wagging low and fast. The wolves hadn’t moved. However, Markai could feel their eyes on him. They were watching. Waiting. For what?

Experimentally, Markai slowly stood up. No movement from the wolves, but Flax started making eager whining sounds.

Breathless, Markai took a step forward. Then another step.

Step.

Step.

He placed his feet as carefully as if he walked over coals. The entire time, his eyes were locked on the wolves. Closer and closer they came. He could make out details. The markings around the eyes. The bulge of the shoulders. The teeth. Flax limped ahead of him. The entire time, her tail twitched like a worm on a hook.

When Markai drew within arm’s reach, he froze, too terrified to take the final steps forward. So close to freedom. It had to be a trick. They wouldn’t just let him go.

Flaxseed was outside the circle, waiting impatiently. She yipped. He couldn’t even spare her a look. He was transfixed by the gaze of the closest wolf. He’d assumed it’s eyes would be yellow, the same hue they glowed from a distance. But this close, he could see that they were the deepest shade of brown. The same color as Flax’s eyes. The same color as his own.

The wolf gave a huff and pulled its lips back, and the spell was broken. Markai dashed from the circle, stopping only to scoop up Flax and hoist her over his shoulder. Then he ran as fast as he dared in the inky night, ran until the mountain beat his lungs into submission. He could feel Flax’s warmth through his clothes, and her slight quivering.

There were no sounds of pursuit. He wheezed in attempted laughter, but his lungs were too tired. Instead, he sank to his knees in relief, hugging Flax as tight as she would allow. They stayed like that for a while, until the cold forced him to get up and moving again.

As he trudged back to camp, he stopped once to look over his shoulder. There was a shadow on the ridge, observing him. He could feel the itching on his skin, like another person was watching him. With a shudder, he hurried on. He was alive. Flax was alive. Tomorrow morning they would leave the mountain, and all its unnatural inhabitants, behind. He would return to his village, and he would have another impossible story to tell around the campfire. One more myth he wasn’t quite sure he could believe. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is the first in what will hopefully be many works set in this universe. I'm hoping to publish one a month. Stay tuned for more~


End file.
